How much does club form matter for the U.S. national team?
To a certain extent, a lot. Gregg Berhalter would find it hard to call up any players outside his core group who aren’t at least getting regular minutes with their club side.
But as this past week has shown, Berhalter also has a pretty clear idea of which players fit his system and which don’t — and no amount of club success is going to change that.
To wit, let’s look at the examples of two strikers in Europe who have experienced vastly different fates over the past year, and what their USMNT status says about club form.
Let’s get to the Five.